“Well, it’s still 145%, but Apple and Nvidia are exempted because their stock prices might take a hit.”

That's a massive misread. You are confusing the direction of influence between secondary public stock markets and federal executive orders.

The tariffs are supposed to strengthen self sufficiency, and discourage imports of stuff the US can do on their own.

Chip manufacturing, (which by the way is often only the manufacturing and not the design or IP of the chips), is an exception for whatever reason, may be labour costs, but it may also be that chips are a mineral heavy and diverse product, so it's one of the few products where autarky isn't feasible or very rewarding.

And there would be situations without exemptions where the US may have been incentivized to import the raw materials and rebuild megachip factories, of which there are only like a dozen in the world, creating a huge output inefficiency due to political reasons on two fronts.

Exceptions are reasonable.